Heart Attacks - My First Silhouette Craft

So my amazing DH bought me a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas - wow, I am a serious fan!! So far, it has been so fun!

First - what's a Silhouette?  Several of my friends asked the same question when I was telling them how excited I was about it.  This is a cutting machine.  Basically it will cut out whatever I ask it to cut out.

So, for my first project, I made Heart Attacks to mail to my grandparents, my friend stationed in Baghdad, and one of my cousins in college. I got a gift card for their on-line shop and downloaded the girl with heart design into my Silhouette.  You can see how the machine cuts out parts.


I then had to take the pieces and glue them together - this created several different girls.

Note: If you are a Silhouette user, I found organizing the designs into separate color files allowed me to get the dresses, hair, etc... in the colors I wanted.  I fill the paper up since it seems each piece of paper can only go through the cutter once.  I ended up with extra pieces, but I just kept them for another day.

Then, I downloaded a cool font off the internet.  I found this font on Pinterest but really you can use any font.  The Silhouette will cut out almost every font - but it helps if it's not too "delicate" - the thinner, the harder it is to remove from the Silhouette mat without damaging it.  (As I said, I am still a beginner).

I then had the Silhouette cut hearts out of tons of different papers - different sizes and styles.  I just downloaded one sheet of heart designs from Silhouette, broke it apart, and then manipulated the hearts to fit.  I used 12x12, 8x10, and 8" squared papers.  Double-sided paper works best for this type of project.

I bought these heart envelopes at my local post office.  Packed it all up and off my "heart attacks" to bring a little cheer to someone's day.